


Dream a Little Dream of Me

by intravenusann



Category: X-Factor (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-24
Updated: 2009-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-05 05:19:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/38206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intravenusann/pseuds/intravenusann
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: X-Force. The first time(s) Rictor and Shatterstar realize that they consider the other to be more than just a friend.</p><p>Summary: A back and forth of Rictor and Shatterstar's growing need for one another and, finally, the beginning of its resolution.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dream a Little Dream of Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Settiai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Settiai/gifts).



It didn't sink in for the longest time, despite the fact that Rictor was the first person to make him feel like, well, a person and even despite waking from dreams of sparing with Rictor achingly erect and unsure what to do. In retrospect, Shatterstar felt it had been a total failing of his own self-awareness that he had some kind of "feelings" for Rictor, which extended beyond the bounds of acceptable friendship.

Perhaps it is just that friendship was, itself, so difficult to understand, but he did not like to be around anyone else as much as he likes to be around Julio. No one made him quite so physically uncomfortable in the dark periods when he woke up from dreams he did not retrospectively understand, though they always made perfect sense when he was in them.

He woke from one such dream and, in the dark, he felt a secondary physical ache for Julio's presence. But Julio was far away, with his family, and that was simply more important than Shatterstar's shallow physical needs of the moment.

This moment, he reassured himself, would pass. He would rest again and dream of something else.

If he really needed him, Rictor would come, but this wasn't really a need. This was not a hunger, Shatterstar told himself, and even if it was—he certainly knew what it was to starve.

\---

Loving him snuck up on Rictor, but it was okay. The men in his family all loved each other and most of them loved their friends more than their girlfriends. Since Rictor couldn't even get a girlfriend and his family was all kinds of fucked up, he was totally okay with loving his best friend more than anyone else. Shatterstar was the best thing in Rictor's life and that made him easy to love.

It didn't mean he was gay.

The fact that sometimes when they were just talking about something stupid, like sharing the gossip about their teammates or explaining weird cultural differences between Mojoland and Mexico and America, Rictor would just stare at Star's mouth and really, really wonder what it might be like to kiss him—that might mean he was gay.

It was only a thought, and it always passed, so Rictor never worried too much about it. It was probably just some weird hormone thing about being a teenager and the fact that he spent pretty much a million hours a day with Shatterstar. They were friends. Of course Rictor loved him, but he wasn't _in love_ with anyone. Especially not Shatterstar. Come on, that would be totally weird and gay and totally not what Rictor and Shatterstar were all about.

But Shatterstar always shaved so clean and his lips were so full for a guy's it really wouldn't be that different from kissing a girl, would it? But Shatterstar was big for a guy and a lot bigger than Julio and he didn't smell like flowers and lipgloss, he smelled like sweaty t-shirts and hair products. So it would be a little different.

He wanted to try it and maybe it was because he never, ever, ever could do it—not in a million years without getting eviscerated by Star and then wanting to crawl into a hole and die—that he wanted it so bad.

\---

It had been one matter entirely to miss Rictor as a friend. It was a whole other matter entirely to miss Rictor as more than a friend. Honestly, Shatterstar found himself moping, or whatever closely approximated 'moping' for him. Maybe it was being a little too rough with teammates and gym equipment during training. Maybe it was spending two and a half hours polishing his swords where he usually spent, at most, a single hour. Maybe it was the matter of watching romantic comedies like they were delicate sociological experiments.

Everyone knew something was wrong and weren't dumb enough to think it had nothing to do with Rictor being gone.

Shatterstar temporarily questioned his own feelings. He knew he was experiencing some kind of ennui related to Rictor being gone, but he associated it with his own realization that Rictor meant so much to him. Either the people around him were all too aware of how much Rictor meant to him, or this level of emotional upset was associated with typical frienships. If the second was the case, then, perhaps, his feelings for Rictor were not unusual. But if that was the case, then Shatterstar was even more confused.

Occasionally he though things would be easier if Rictor was here to explain them, but then he realized that he couldn't discuss this with Rictor at all. So there was more sword polishing.

\---

Rictor thought maybe he'd get over whatever weird thing he was going through with Shatterstar by going home. Maybe with a little time and space between them, he might chill out and stop being so weird.

He wasn't so lucky. He missed Shatterstar like a severed limb. Every time things got tense, he found himself thinking, "What would Shatterstar do?" and putting on a warrior's face that wasn't his own.

It was an ache inside of him and he couldn't pretend it was something else. He'd never imagined being in love quite like this. It hurt, but it wasn't torrid or flowery or full of hot passion. It just hurt.

He was miles away with his hair growing out even more and his green bandana getting sweat soaked. Itchy whiskers were persistently growing in along the edge of his jaw and his skin was baking darker and darker with every passing day. His family finally saw him as a man, which was surreal. And he was in love with his best friend, a man, who probably didn't even understand the concept of falling in love. All it did was hurt, but it wasn't anything he couldn't live with.

\---

Shatterstar was always aware when he was dreaming, but as of late he had found dreaming could be a quite enjoyable experience.

He was in an austere training room, with padded floor and easy to clean walls. Rictor was beside him, grinning. Yes, Shatterstar liked this dream. Rictor was damp, with sweat or shower water, and there were beads of moisture caught in his sparse chest hair and his eyelashes. His eyes were bright and his cheeks a bit flushed, he looked so happy and so close.

"Come on, 'mano, hit me," Rictor said. His grin turned into a taunt.

Shatterstar easily overpowered him, but it only made Rictor laugh.

"I'm not sure I'm learning anything like this," he admitted.

"Do you want to stop?" Star asked.

"No," Rictor told him.

In his dreams, he always won, though he would have thrown a fight or two in any real practice with Julio. Maybe Julio would have even tried some new trick and pinned him to the mat for a second or two. Never in his dreams, though.

But Rictor was always smiling and laughing, his teeth flashing and his eyes creasing at the corners. Sometimes he would square Shatterstar with a look of intense brown-eyed focus and it always made him smile to see that. In his dreams, Rictor was always more than perfect; it made Shatterstar warm all over.

"Hey there," Rictor would whisper into his ear when Star had him pressed to the ground.

"Oh, Julio, I wish I could tell you everything you mean to me," he said.

"You don't need to, Star," Rictor said. "I already know."

Even though it was a dream, Shatterstar still felt his chest tighten. He held Rictor tight, pressing his face into the crook of Julio's shoulder. Rictor's arms were tight around his ribs, hugging him back. Their skin was warm and slick against one another.

All of sudden, Rictor rolled him over and then Shatterstar had to roll him back beneath him. They were both laughing then. Shatterstar's breath came short. Rictor licked his lips.

"Shatterstar," Julio would say. He couldn't catch his breath or take his eyes off Julio's face below him. Everything felt bright and hot and he was shaking. Julio was just smiling, then he tilted his head a bit to the left and exposed the length of his tan neck.

Shatterstar woke up, his face pressed into his pillow. He was itchy with sweat and there was a wet, sticky spot below him on the sheets.

"Ew," he said simply.

Dreams were perfect, but waking never was.

\---

Rictor didn't know he was dreaming. He just knew he was back in the Arizona compound, on the couch he often shared with Shatterstar back when Star monopolized the remote control and never stayed on one channel for more than a few blinks.

On the television were commercials of perfume and jewelry, with high class couples clasped in intensely passionate liplocks. Every other channel was porn, with fake moans and bow chikka wow music interspersed with raunchy rap music and chiming commercials.

With no need to speak and no awkward knocking of teeth or bumping of noses, Shatterstar and he met in a kiss. It was soft and wet, just about as perfect as he'd always imagined it.

"I want you," Shatterstar said. "I need you."

Funny how even in Rictor's dreams, Shatterstar was never saying, "I love you."

Rapidly, they'd go from kissing to pulling off each other's shirts and jeans. Rictor would straddle Star's lap and jerk him off with a rough hand while they kissed and kissed. Then Shatterstar would push him back and crawl down with the practiced grace of someone who learned from watching porn stars. He'd sweep his red hair behind his shoulders and lick his lips.

Rictor twisted his fingers in Shatterstar's hair and opened his thighs.

Then he woke up in the worn sheets of his childhood bed with the night freezing around him, but the humidity high.

He groaned uselessly and tried to recapture the moment. He thought about the dream and then imagined more things, things that didn't happen in the dream. Mostly he imagined kissing Shatterstar. Like he had as an adolescent, he came, caught it, and cleaned it up without a thought.

Then, conscience heavy, he rolled over and went back to sleep. It was just another night. And to think, Julio had thought being away from Shatterstar would make this better.

\---

Shatterstar was as close to ecstatic as he ever got to see Rictor again and Julio, for his part, was happier than he'd been in months.

Late at night, though, they worried that all their little secrets were obvious to one another.

"Hey, Star," Rictor said. "Can I talk to you?"

Star's breath came short and he ached. He hurt.

Words spilled out and then they were sitting side by side in the dark. Their noses bumped when Rictor leaned over and tried to kiss Shatterstar, but laughed and Shatterstar smiled into the kiss.

It was perfect.


End file.
